This invention relates in general to machines for packaging fibrous materials, such as alfalfa, and more particular for a machine for separating, weighing, compressing and packaging fibrous materials.
Livestock feed products, such as alfalfa hay, and other fibrous products are generally transported in low density bales bound with binder twine. Because of the low bale density, trucks are generally loaded with very high stacks of bales. Loading and unloading the trucks is difficult and time consuming. Loads may shift, causing roll over accidents. The bales may become wet due to rain during shipment, leading to mildew or rot which may reduce the value of the material or even ruin it for use as an animal feed.
Because of the low density, shipping bales of fibrous materials over long distances is generally not economical. Transporting such material by sea is expensive and difficult, in particular because the low density bales are expensive to handle, load and unload relative to the value of the material. Also, if the material becomes wet or even damp in the presence of oxygen during a long voyage, mildew and rot are likely and spontaneous combustion is possible.
Attempts have been made to compress such fibrous materials to increase the density and make shipment more convenient and economical. Typical of these are the devices described by Jensen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,440 and Gombos in U.S. Pat. No. 5,001,974. Bales of hay and the like are compressed by a hydraulic ram to a higher density, then straps are wrapped around the bales and they are shipped. While density is improved, these devices do not assure that the compressed bales are uniform in weight and of an optimally high density. The bales are still susceptible to mildew, rot and the formation of toxins in the material due to existing moisture content or outside moisture, such as rain and the like since oxygen is not excluded.
Prior hay bale compression devices generally compressed a pre-existing bale, of the sort produced by balers in the field, so that the final density is not uniform. Further, the size and uniformity of the fibrous particles are not optimized for the animals to be fed or for other uses of the material. Because of the non-uniform fibrous particles, weighing precise amounts of the material for re-baling with prior devices is difficult or impossible.
A number of different machines for forming plastic bags and filling the bags with a measured amount of a material have been developed. Among these are the machines described by James in U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,965 and Mikata et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,205. Typically, a web of plastic material is formed into a tube, the tube is sealed along a crosswise line to form a bag, a quantity of a product is dropped into the bag and the inlet is sealed. While effective for many materials for short term storage, this type of bagging machine is not successful with fibrous material which has a significant moisture content and is intended for long distance shipment under varying conditions or for long term storage. Moisture trapped in the bag with organic fibrous material is likely to develop mildew or other deleterious conditions since oxygen is not removed from the bag, making the material unusable for the intended purpose. Further, these plastic bags are generally pillow-like and difficult to carry, stack or handle, especially where a considerable weight of material is enclosed.
Thus, there is a continuing need for improved machines for packaging fibrous material which overcome the problems of prior devices in providing uniform fiber particles of desired size, in precisely weighing or otherwise measuring selected quantities of material, in fully and uniformly compressing the material into high density packages, of reducing or eliminating retained oxygen and moisture problems in containers for the material and of making the final product convenient to handle.